D 570 
.8 

C7 P6 4ITED STATES COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

1919 

Copy 1 

A STATEMENT OF THE WORK OF 

THE STATE AND TERRITORIAL COUNCILS OF DEFENSE 

AND THE STATE AND TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS OF THE 

WOMAN'S COMMITTEE OF THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL 

DEFENSE THROUGHOUT THE WAR 



A TRIBUTE AND A LOOK INTO THE 

FUTURE 



BY 



GR0SVENOR B. CLARKSON 

Director, United States Council of National Defanaa 




WASHINGTON 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICI 



-?lp^-^J^ 




UNITED STATES COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 



A STATEMENT OF THE WORK OF 
THE STATE AND TERRITORIAL COUNCILS OF DEFENSE 
AND THE STATE AND TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS OF THE 
WOMAN'S COMMITTEE OF THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL 

DEFENSE THROUGHOUT THE WAR 



A TRIBUTE AND A LOOK INTO THE 

FUTURE 



BY 



GROSVENOR B, CLARKSON 

Director, United States Council of National Defense 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1919 



^'T 






D. of i>. 
>UN n 1919 



UNITED STATES COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, 

Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, Chairman. 
JosEPHUs Daniels, Secretary of the Navy. 
Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior. 
David F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture. 
William C. Eedfield, Secretary of Commerce. 
William B. Wilson, Secretary of Labor. 
Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Director. 

FIELD DIVISION OF THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE. 

Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, Chairmam,. 

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, Vice Chairman. 

Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Director. 

Hannah J. Patterson, Associate Director. 

D. M. Reynolds, Assistant to the Director. 

F. L. Allen, Assistant to the Director. 

GOVERNING BOARD. 



George L. Berey. 

K. M. BlSSELL. 

Fuller Callaway. 
Gbo.svenor B. Clarkson. 
Mrs. Joseph R. Lamar. 
Mrs. Stanley R. McCormick. 



Agnes Nestor. 
Hannah J. Patterson. 
H. M. Robinson. 
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. 
Ida M. Tarbell. 
Daniel Willard. 



ORGANIZATION OF FIELD DIVISION AS OF ii NOVEMBER, 1918. 



I'ederal Agencies Section : 

Chief, John S. Cravens. 
Americanization Section : 

Chief, Mrs. Martlia Evans Martin. 
Child Conservation Section : 

Chief, Dr. Jessica B. Peisotto. 
Field Staff : 

John S. Shepparil. 

Rutledge Smith. 

John H. Winterbotham. 



News Section : 

Chief, Ida M. Tarbell. 
Organization and Information Sec- 
tion : 

Chief, Elliott Dunlap Smith. 
Speakers' Section : 

Chief, P. L. Allen. 
Office Management : 

Chief, C. L. Buehl. 



Note. — The Field Division was formerly known as tile State Councils Section, of wliicli 
tlie first chief was George F. Porter, who was succeeded by Arthur H. Fleming, March 23, 
I'JIS. 

107373"— 19 (3) 



CHAIRMEN OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL COUNCILS OF DEFENSE 
AS OF II NOVEMBER, 1918, THE DATE OF THE SIGNING OF THE 

ARMISTICE. 

ALABAMA Lloyd M. Hooper, State Capitol, Montgomery. 

ALASKA W. A. Clark, P. O. box 1097, Juneau. 

ARIZONA Gov. George W. P. Hunt, State Capitol, Phoenix. 

AEKANSAS Adjt. Gen. Lloyd Ensjland, 1108 Bovlo Building. Little Rock. 

CALIFORNA (;ov. W. C. Stephens, State Capitol. Sacramento. 

COLORADO Gov. Julius C. Gunter, State Capitol, Denver. 

CONNECTICUT Itichard M. Bi.'ssell, State Capitol, Ilartfofd. 

DELAWARE Gov. John G. Townsend, jr.. State Capitol, Dover. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA William H. Baldwin. 1415 Twenty-first Street, Washington. 

FLORIDA Justice James Whitfield. Tallahassee. 

GEORGIA Gov. Hugh M. Dorsey. State Capitol. Atlanta. 

IDAHO Dr. E. A. Bryan, State Capitol, Boise. 

ILLINOIS Samuel Insull, 120 West Adams Street, Chicago. 

INDIANA Michael Foley, Statehouse, Indianapolis, 

IOWA Lafayette Young, sr., Des Moines. 

KANSAS Dr. H. J. Waters, Weekly Kansas Citv Star, Kansas City. 

KENTUCKY Edward W. Hines. Inter-Southern Buildini;, Louisville. 

LOUISIANA Gov. Ruflin G. Pleasant, State Capitol, Baton Rouge. 

MAINE Harold M. Sewall, Bath. 

MARYLAND Gen. Francis Waters, Union Trust Building, Baltimore. 

MASSACHUSETTS James J. Storrow, Statehouse, Boston. 

MICHIGAN Gov. Albert Sleeper, State Capitol, Lansing. 

MINNESOTA Gov. J. A. A. Buruquist, State Capitol, St. Paul. 

MISSISSIPPI Gov. Theodore Bilbo, State Capitol, Jackson. 

MISSOURI F. B. Mumford. Columbia. 

MONTANA Gov. Samuel Stewart, State Capitol, Helena. 

NEBRASKA Robert M. Joyce. Bankers' Life Building. Lincoln. 

NEVADA Gov. Emmet 1). Boyle, State Capitol, Carson City. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE John B. Jameson, State Capitol, Concord. 

NEW JERSEY Mayor Thomas Raymond. Newark. 

NEW MEXICO Secundino Itomero, Las Vegas. 

NEW YORK Gov. Charles Whitman, State Capitol, Albany. 

NORTH CAROLINA D. H. Hill, Raleigh. 

NORTH DAKOTA Gov. Lynn Frazier, State Capitol. Bismarck. 

OHIO Gov. James Cox, State Capitol, Columbus. 

OKLAHOMA J. M. Aydelotte, State Capitol, Oklahoma Citv. 

OREGON William F. Woodward, Wood-Lark Building, Portland. 

PENNSYLVANIA George Wharton Pepper, Finance Building, Philadelphia. 

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS Gov. Francis Burton Harrison, Manila. 

RHODE ISLAND Gov. K. Livingston Beeckman, Statehouse, Providence. 

SOUTH CAROLINA D. M. Coker, Hartsville. 

SOUTH DAKOTA Gov. Peter Norbeck, State Capitol, Pierre. 

TENNESSEE Maj. Butledge Smith, Masonic Temple, Nashville. 

TEXAS Judge O. E. Dunlap, Waxahachie. 

UTAH L. H. Farnsworth, care Walker Bros., bankers. Salt Lake 

City. 

VERMONT Judge Leigh ton P. Slack, State Capitol. Montpelier. 

VIRGINIA .\d]t. Gen. Jo Lane Stern. State Cnpitol. Richmond. 

WASHINGTON Dr. Henry Suzzalo, University of Washington, Seattle. 

WEST VIRGINIA Gov. John G. Cornwell. State Capitol, Charleston. 

WISCONSIN W. S. Heddles, State Capitol, Madison. 

WYOMING Maurice Groshon, P. O, box 115, Cheyenne 

(4) 



CHAIRMEN OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS OF THE 
WOMAN'S COMMITTEE AS OF ii NOVEMBER, 1918. 

ALABAMA Mrs. .lamps F. Hooper, 010 Mabry Street, Sclma. 

ALASKA Mrs. Thomas J. Donohoe, VaUlez. 

ARIZONA Mrs. Eusiene Brady O'Neill, 701 North Central Avenue, 

Phoenix. 

ARKANSAS Mrs. .Joseph Frauenthal, Conway. 

CALIFORNIA Mrs. Herbert A. Cable, 710 South Hill Street, Los Angeles. 

COLORADO Mrs. W. H. Klstler, room 39, Statehouse, Denver. 

CONNECTICUT Mrs. .T. Belknap Beach. State Capitol. Hartford. 

DELA'WARE Mrs. Charles R. Miller, 1 Red Oak Road, Wilmington. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Mrs. Archibald Hopkins. 1308 F Street NW., Washington. 

FLORIDA Mrs. Fiank Jeuninns. 1807 Oak Street. Jacksonville. 

GEORGIA Mrs. Samuel M. Ininan, 552 Teachtree Street. Atlanta. 

HAWAII Mrs. John M. Dowsett, Tunahou Street, Honolulu. 

IDAHO Mrs. Samuel H. Hays, 612 Franklin Street, Boise. 

ILLINOIS Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, 120 West Adams Street, Chicago. 

INDIANA Mrs. Charles A. Carlisle, 83 Statehouse, Indianapolis. 

IOWA Mrs. Francis E. Whitley, Webster City. 

KANSAS Mrs. Pavid W. Mulvane, Topeka. 

KENTUCKY Mrs. Helm Bruce, 204 Speed Building, Louisville. 

LOUISIANA Mrs. .\rthur Browne Hammond, jr., Howard .\nnex, City 

Ilall, New Orleans. 

MAINE Mrs. Frederick H. .\bbott, Saco. 

MARYLAND Mrs. FMward Shoemaker, 200 West Saratoga Street, Bal- 
timore. 

MASSACHUSETTS . Mrs. Nathaniel Thayer, Statehouse. Boston. 

MICHIGAN Mrs. Caroline Bartlett Crane, 420 South Rose Street, Kala- 
mazoo. 

MINNESOTA Mrs. Thomas G. Winter, 2019 Kenwood Parkway. Minne- 
apolis. 

MISSISSIPPI Mrs. Edward McGehee, Como. 

MISSOURI Mrs. B. F. Bush, rooms 1862 and 1863, Railway Exchange 

Building, St. Louis. 

MONTANA Mrs. Henrv L. Sherlock. Helena. 

NEBRASKA Miss Sarka B. Ilrbkova. .500 Bankers' Life Building, Lincoln. 

NEVADA : Mrs. Pearis Buckner Ellis, Carson City. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE Mrs. Mary I. Wood. P. O. drawer 88, Portsmouth. 

NEW JERSEY .Mrs. Charles W. Stockton. 571-A Broad Street, Newark. 

KEW MEXICO Mrs. George W. Priehard, Santa Fe. 

NEW YORK Mrs. Alexander Trowbridge, 1 West Sixty-fourth Street, 

New York City. 

NORTH CAROLINA Mrs. Eugene Reilley, Charlotte. 

NORTH DAKOTA Mrs. Fred L. Conklin, 338 Federal Building, Bismarck. 

OHIO- Miss Belle Sherwin, Statehouse, Columbus. 

OKLAHOMA Mrs. Eugene B. Lawson, 518 East Osage Street, Nowata. 

OREGON Mrs. Charles H. Castner, Hood River. 

PENNSYLVANIA Mrs. J. Willis Martin, seventh floor. Finance Building, 

South Penn Square, Philadelphia. 

RHODE ISLAND Mrs. Rush Sturges, 307 Statehouse Annex. Providence. 

SOUTH CAROLINA Mrs. J. Otey Reed, 507 Union Bank Building, Columbia. 

SOUTH DAKOTA Dr. Helen S. Peahody, Sioux Falls. 

TENNESSEE Mrs. George W. Denney, State Capitol. Nashville. 

TEXAS Mrs. Fred Fleming, 1934 North Carroll Avenue, Dallas. 

UTAH Mrs. W. N. Williams, 322 State Capitol. Salt Lake City. 

VERMONT Mrs. Anna Hawks Putnam, Bennington. 

VIRGINIA Mrs. Egbert G. Leigh, jr., 504 West Franklin Street, 

Richmond. 

WASHINGTON Mrs. J. S. McKee, State Council of Defense, Olympia. 

WEST VIRGINIA" Mrs. Joseph G. Cochran, 1016 Market Street. Parkersburg. 

WISCONSIN Mrs. Henry H. Morgan, State House, Madison. 

WYOMING Mrs. W. B. D. Gray, box 115, Cheyenne. 

(5) 



GOODE*S SERIES OF BASE MAPC. No. 10 




For clan qso id OooKcapli). History, Civics, Economics, otc. rre[»rcd by J. Paul Gocdo. Put>lib.heiJ by Tbo Uoivertiity qI Clticaco Press. 
Cbicasv, Iliiooii, Copsright 1908, by Tbo DDirerBity ot Cbica^. 

SUBLOCAL SYSTEM AS OF FEBRUAKY 1, 1918. 
Legend. 



Ii\\>y»0j Complete organization by school districts. 

More than 50 per cent of State organized by school districts. 
Less than 50 per cent of State organized by school districts. 



^^Jjl^l^ Complete organization by townships. 



Township organization under way. 
Complete municipal organization. 



UNITED STATES COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, 
FIELD DIVISION. 



WASHINGTON. D. C. 



TO THE FORTY-EIGHT STATE COUNCILS OF DEFENSE AND THOSE OF 
ALASKA AND THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, AND THE STATE AND 
TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS OF THE WOMAN'S COMMIT- 
TEE OF THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE. 



A TRIBUTE AND A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE. 



January 12, 1919. 

In the early daj's of a new year distinguished and made sacred by 
the coming of peace after four and a half years of world war, it is 
the desire of the writer in behalf of the Council of National Defense 
to pay tiibute to the various state councils of defense and to the 
state divisions of the woman's committee of the council for the i-e- 
markable contribution which they have made to the winning of the 
war; to send seasonal greeting to these bodies and to their scores of 
thousands of units, and to say a word with regard to the service of 
the future. 

Victorj' has been achieved and the enemy has capitulated to the 
most stringent terms of surrender that history records. For 
America, the actual arena of the war was 3,000 miles oversea, and 
into this arena the Government of the United States threw 2,000,000 
of the most superb troops that the drama of warfare has Imown ; and, 
what is more, got them there on time to make possible the final smash- 
ing blow. The organization, transportation, and clocklike delivery 
at the eleventh hour of these irresistible citizen armies of the great 
republic of the western world is an epic in itself, a story in the 
making of which all of us who have served are miraculously fortu- 
nate to have borne even a small part. The sacrifices that have been 
made on this side of the water should be counted as nothing, unless, 
indeed, they should be held as benefits conferred, for in the phil- 
osophy of sacrifice there is gain for every human being. None of 

(7) 



8 

us will ever again move on as gi'eat a stage or be so close to the chem- 
istry of high events. Those who have had the most to offer have 
been the haj^j^iest in this war. There need be no repining, whatever 
the material cost may have been. 

The war has been won and the world is being remade. The nations 
that have been aligned on the side of a decent civilization will have 
their share in the remaking, and the logic of events will no doubt 
bring a contribution to the world's future w^elfare even from those 
defeated countries in which new and better forces are arising, we 
hope, out of the ashes of empire, empire perverted and gone awry. 

THE ARMIES AT HOME. 

But here at home there have been armies, too. And they have 
performed a mighty task. They were created without mandates ; they 
were welded into cohesive form by suggestion rather than by order; 
they were galvanized from beginning to end by the mighty force of 
voluntary cooperation; and they went into the home stretch 
with a power which nothing could have stopped. These were the 
armies of i^roduction — production not alone of guns and steel plates 
and soldiers' shoes, not alone even of visible things, but production 
of energy, of thought that made the sword a flaming thing; of 
optimism, to offset the stupid pessimism of people who criticized 
but had nothing tangible to contribute; of the immortal spirit of 
" carry on," of, above all, unification. For it has only been within 
the past year that this nation has completely realized that after all 
it is, properly introduced to itself, but a partnership of 100.000.000 
persons. Out of all this has grown one of the great lessons of the 
war to America : the interdependency of social effort, the effort which 
in the last equation must keep a nation wholesome in peace and which 
must furnish the continuing tireless force behind the cutting edge 
in time of war. 

Tliis, then, was broadly our task here at home. 

In the vast work of unification, in the carrying from Washington 
to the people the messages and measures of the national govern- 
ment, and in the transmission back to Washington of the moods and 
aspirations of a people at war, the council of defense system, with its 
more than 180,000 units set down in almost everj' hamlet of the coun- 
try, played a definite, stirring, and highly fruitful part. One of the 
phrases with which Congress created the Coimcil of National Defense 
is this : " The creation of relations which will render possible in time 
of need the immediate* concentration and utilization of the resources 
of the nation." It was under this authority that the nation-wide 
council of defense system was brought into being, just as it was 



possible as well as necessary for the council under the same authority 
to bring about the mobilization of our industrial, labor, and scientific 
forces for the national defense — which is another story. 

THE CALL TO THE STATES. 

On May 2, 1917, the Council of National Defense called in Wash- 
ington a conference of the states. From this meeting, which was 
addressed by the President of the United States, by Secretary Baker 



COODE'S SERIES OF BASE MAPS. No. 10 




Po. clc u» 1. Q~j..pb,'. Kistor,, Ciila. Ecoooa.lc.. etc. Prcp.^ b, J. V.ul (Jood,. P»bl„L.d fj Tb. U«i,...itT •>! Cbic.iw P.«i., 
Cbtciso. niiooil. Copjri|!blH08.bJIbenoi.tr.itio(Chit«!o. 

COMMUNITY COUNCIL SYSTEM AS OF FEBKUARY 1, 1919. 

Legend. 
QjJ Complete community organization. 

Organization more than 50 per cent complete. 
Organization less than 50 per cent complete. 
^^ Complete municipal organization. 

as chairman of the Council, by several members of the Cabinet, and 
by the Director of the Council, sprang the council of defense system as 
we now know it. Cooperation was established with the state divisions 
of the woman's committee of the Council of National Defense and the 
work was everywhere got under way. It consisted in the first in- 
stance of explaining and transmitting to all communities of the 
country the policies and the programs of the various federal depart- 
ments and war agencies. 



10 

Educational propaganda necessary for the proper emphasis of 
war measures essential to victory was prepared in Washington, and 
through the Council of National Defense forwarded at once to the 
state councils of defense and to the state divisions of the woman's 
committee, where immediate decentralization of the message to be 
conveyed or of the work to be done took j^lace. In this way the 
council of defense system served in the mobilization of resources and 
(materials, and it stinted the commujal r.ojiscience, and, by extension, 
I the national conscience, to a realization of the problems incident 
(to the winning of the war. With the personnel almost wholly vol- 
untary throughout, the original machinery became an extensive and 
elaborate mechanism, but one which has always stood up under the 
stress and strain put upon it no matter how involved and taxing the 
task. To-day, the council of defense system comprehends 184,400 
units, made up of state, county, municipal, and community councils 
of defense and vmits of the woman's committee. 

Under the direction of the Council of National Defense at Wash- 
ington, composed at the top of its structure of six members of the 
Cabinet, headed by the Secretary of War, the work went forward. 
Toward the end of the war, the direction of the Council's field work — 
as distinguished from its many other activities— was, as you know, 
concentrated into the field division of the Council of National De- 
fense under the chairmanship of Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of 
the Interior, and under the immediate direction of the writer. Dr. 
Anna Howard Shaw became vice chairman, and Hannah J. Patter- 
son, associate director, of the field division. 

The programs of the War, Navy, Agriculture, Interior, and Labor 
Departments, the Food and Fuel Administrations, the Shipping 
Board, the United States Employment Service, the Children's Bu- 
reau, the Bureau of Education, the American Eed Cross, the Na- 
tional War Savings Connnittee, the several Liberty loans, the Com- 
mission on Training Camp Activities, and the various other official 
and recognized agencies united in the common task of war, were 
sent in complete form to the states and there made clear to the com- 
munities and translated into action. 

CARRYING THE MESSAGES. 

Many of these programs, and more especially those involving the 
exercise of extraordinai-y powers or the responsibility for handling 
immense funds, required the creation of separate machinery, which, 
radiating from the national center to the small localities would con- 
cern itself exclusively with the fulfilment of the special program of 
the administration and be directly and fully responsible therefor. 
In the creation of this special local machinery, the councils of defense 



11 

and the divisions of the woman's committee bore a large part. To 
your prompt and eifectiye aid the remarkably quick and yet wholly 
sturd}' growth of the Food Administration, the Fuel Administration, 
the Unite d States Publj c-Seia^ee^eaerye, the United States Employ- 
ment Service, the Commission on Training Camp Activities, in its 
law enforcement and anti-venereal disease and in its war camp com- 
munity service- divisions, the boards of instruction of the Provost- 
Marshal General, and other great war administrations and agencies 
is in large measure due. 

HELPING THE DRAFT BOARDS. 

Even those established departments which like the Department of 
Agriculture and the Treasury Department had alreadj' spread a net- 
work of local agencies over the country were through your assistance 
enabled to make this network rapidly finer and more complete and 
ready to meet the strain of war. Furthermore, the newly created 
draft boards you assisted with volunteer workers, especially when 
the transcription of occupational cards bore heavily upon them, and 
j'ou aided in bringing out a full registration through the celebration 
of registration daj'S and the round-up of delinquents. Before the 
draft you were ever in the forefront in recruiting. Eesponses to the 
call of the Civil Service Commission for qualified workers were mul- 
tiplied through your assistance. Your aid to these federal depart- 
ments and administrations, however, by no means ended there. You 
provided to them facilities and assistance which were needed by all 
alike, first by one, and then by another, and which therefore could 
be provided with economy only through a central organization, and 
you have made available to them resources and public cooperation 
which no special agency alone could command. 

You counteracted destructive criticism of the government's war 
measures by replacing thoughtless gossip with constructive truths. 
Your extensive publicity organization, which, because it was always 
at work and at work everywhere, was unparalleled in the effectiveness 
and extent of its contact with the press and in the vigor and com- 
pleteness of its speakers' bureaus ; your contact with the people them- 
selves through your coirmiunity councils and ward units, and your 
complete enlistment, organization, and leadership of the women of 
America, have been a mighty soui'ce of power from which arose 
much of the strength of the local federal bodies. In addition, by 
bringing these local federal agencies together in your state and 
county war boards, you have fused their energies and those of the 
state into one harmonious and effective power, and have bi'ought into 
their councils the viewpoint of the state and locality, thereby increas- 
ing the effectiveness of each oi'ganization througli leading to a closer 
adjustment of programs to local needs and conditions. 



12 



THE CONCRETE ACHIEVEMENT. 



In such of the great war programs as did not inherently require 
the creation of extensive local machinery, you have assumed the full 
conduct of the work. You have thus saved to the nation, at a time 
when economy was vital, the tremendous expense of creating elabo- 
rate new administrations, ramifying in ever-increasing multiplicity 
throughout the land; and you have made possible the conduct of 
brief and immediate emergency tasks when lack of time, as well as 
inordinate expense, would otherwise have made impossible the provi- 
sion of the extensive organization requisite to meet the brief but im- 
perative need. Almost without additional expense or the creation 
of additional organization, you have, under the leadership of the 
War Industries Board, regidated and curtailed non-war construction 
through the action of tribunals sitting in every county in America. 
You have served the welfare of the departing and returning men 
through the establishment of legal aid committees. You have 
provided public information as to possibilities provided by the Fed- 
eral Board for Vocational Education for crippled soldiers. You have 
reported cases of unwarranted payments under the war-risk insur- 
ance law, and have materially aided in the detection of deserters. 

You have located enemy-owned property for the Alien Property 
Custodian. You have met enemy propaganda with counter-propa- 
ganda, and checked the spread of disloj'alty and sedition, and at tlie 
same time have worked against lawlessness in tlie treatment of per- 
sons suspected of disloyalty. You have conducted for the Children's 
Bureau of the Department of Labor its Children's Year program by 
creating a special organization extending to counties, towns, and even 
school districts, and have secured the establishment of permanent 
agencies to further this work. Your Americanization committees 
have become the state and local coordinating and executive agents 
of the Department of the Interior, and you have won a position of 
general leadership in presenting the work of Americanization. You 
have relieved railroad congestion through promoting ordering at 
slack times in the nearest market and in carload lots, and in extend- 
ing and facilitating motor transportation. You have brought to the 
peojjle a message of economy and thrift, and have made practical 
application thereof through abolishing the return of unsold bread, 
the curtailment of retail deliveries, the establishment of community 
kitchens, and protection of supplies from fire through inspection of 
hazards and provision of fire-fighting equipment, through super\as- 
ing the solicitation of funds by voluntary war agencies and coordinat- 
ing their work in the interest of economy of resources and efl'ort. 



13 



ENLISTING SOCIAL AGENCIES. 



You have aided in collecting funds for the Red Cross, the United 
War Work Campaign, and other gi'eat voluntary campaigns, as well 
as in the floating of the liberty loans and the war savings stamp 
issues. You have aided existing social agencies to meet the strain 
of the war, and through your efforts to protect young people from 
the serious social effects of abnormal times, you have helped to figiit 
what was vicious and to foster what was good and wholesome in our 
social life. You have assisted in the provision of school-teachers 
and in the back-to-school movement, and have recruited thousands 
of nurses to fill the emergency need of the hospitals at home. You 
have aided the Navy in its efforts to secure optical instruments and 
you have borne the major part in the campaign of the Shipping 
Board to enroll the United States shipyard volunteers. You have 
met the problems of housing in centers where intensification of war 
work has led to congestion. 

Tln-ough' speakers, thi-ough your state and county war conferences, 
motion pictures, posters, bulletin boards, and the press, including 
your own periodicals, through personal contact, through community 
singing, liberty choruses, and the organized fellowship of war work- 
ers in community councils, you have aroused throughout the nation 
a desire for service; you have brought before the people an intelli- 
gent vision of how that service could best be rendered, and you have 
upheld their faith and enthusiasm throughout the trying months of 
the war, thus winning the high title of being the special guardians 
of civilian morale. The strength of your organization and your 
prompt and effective execution of federal progranis and requests led 
President Wilson, on October 26, 1918, to request of every depart- 
ment or administration in Washington, when they were considering 
the extension of their organization or new work to be done in the 
states, " to determine carefully whether they can not make use of the 
council of defense system " through the Council of National Defense 
in Washington. 

Not only in the execution of federal programs, however, have you 
rendered distinguished service. From their origin, state councils of 
defense and state divisions of the woman's committee have been 
vigorous and i-esourceful in devising independent programs and 
independent amplifications of federal programs to meet the peculiar 
needs and to make available for national service the special resources 
and opportunities of their states. In evolving measures to increase 
agricultural production and to combat influenza and conserve the 
public health, the resourcefulness and initiative of state councils 



14 

and state divisions of the woman's committee have been especially 
apparent. In many cases the vigor and insight of a particular coun- 
cil or division and its intimate knowledge of local problems and 
conditions has led it to devise on a state basis programs of work that 
were of national application and value and were taken over by the 
Council of National Defense as federal progi-ams. 

THE PERMANENT FRUITAGE. 

Your work and the democratic nature of your organization have 
also led to great permanent benefits. You have awakened a nation- 
wide interest in the welfare of our children, in the safeguarding of 
women who have entered the industrial field, in the assimilation and 
Americanization of our foreign born, in healthy group recreation 
and social expression and in wise nonpartisan community organiza- 
tion. You have made the communities sensible of their own needs 
and opportunities and strong in action to meet them, and have de- 
veloped the means of translating into effective action the new inter- 
ests which you have aroused. 

Thus during the war you have, on a nonparthan hasis throughout, 
strengthened and upheld the hands of the federal government, you 
have made available to it the great resources of your state, and you 
have brought the people to the government in'efffective and under- 
standing service. Now that active hostilities have ended, you are, 
in response to the national council's request of December 2, 1918, 
making possible a continuation of this efficient union of state, na- 
tional, and voluntary forces to serve the welfare of the returning 
soldiers and sailors of each state and to meet the problems of re- 
adjustment. In a bulletin now in the mails, you will find a detailed 
recital of what the progi'am of " carry on " will make necessary. 

CARRY ON. 

These programs and requests for cooperation from the various 
federal departments and agencies ask you to unite with the United 
States Employment Service in providing employment for discharged 
soldiers and sailors and with the Federal Board for Vocational 
Education in its work of rehabilitation of men wounded in the 
service. They ask your aid in procuring legal advice to men leaving 
the service and in providing suitable recejDtion to the returning sol- 
diers and sailors and permanent recognition of their deeds of valor. 
They call for your assistance to the Adjutant General in preventing 
desertion in the interest of orderly demobilization, to the Bureau of 
War Eisk Insurance in its efforts to eliminate unwarranted pay- 
ments, and to the War Camp Community Service and law enforce- 
ment division of the Commission on Training Camp Activities in 
conserving the welfare of the men in demobilization camps. 



15 

They ask you for your assistance in increasing food production and 
food conservation ; in the housing of war workers still engaged in pro- 
viding for our forces oversea ; in the stimulation of public improve- 
ment to prevent excessive unemployment ; in the improvement of our 
general health and its reconstruction after the ravages of influenza, 
in cooi^eration with the Public Health Service; in floating the coming 
Liberty loan and the new issue of war savings stamps. They ask you 
to carry through the Children's Year progi'am, which means so much 
to the coming generation in America, and to continue your work for 
the Americanization of 'our foreign-born, for the support of estab- 
lished social agencies in meeting the relief problems of the coming 
winter, and for the maintenance of the public morale through pub- 
licity and education, employing the far-reaching channels of com- 
munity organization. These programs look also to securing on a 
permanent basis the gains in community organization, in xVmerican- 
ization, in child welfare, and in similar efforts made possible by and 
gi'owing out of the war. 

Vrith regard to the permanent organization of nonpartisan com- 
munity councils, to be imder state rather than under federal direc- 
tion, there will arise, and the national council is now planning how 
best to meet, the problem of preserving to the nation through these 
channels the superb cooperation and unity which has been one of the 
major assets of the war to America. 

In conclusion, and specifically with reference to the thought con- 
tained in the foregoing paragraph, jDermit me to quote the following 
sentences from a recent memorandum to myself from the Secretary 
of War as chairman of the Council of National Defense: 

" I have a very distinct feeling that the artificial centralization which 
necessarily went on around Washington during the war ought not 
to be continued a day longer than can be avoided. The local control 
of local problems is one of the very e&sential principles of our entire 
Government, and it is only when problems become larger than single 
localities that some association of localities is necessary to meet them. 
Home rule for cities is surely a sound principle of city government, 
just as the unfettered control of State problems by State governments 
is wise. The yielding of individuals and the subordination of mental 
units to the National Government ought to be only so far as is neces- 
sary to protect and conserve national interests. We get back to nor- 
mal when we get back to adherence to this principle." 

The philosophy contained in Secretary Baker's words is in broad 
measure the underlying philosophy of the administration of the 
peace-time activities of the field work of the Council. 

Gbosvenor B. Claekson, 
Director of the Council of National Defense 

and of the. Field Division. 

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